“Seven Snipers” (2026) keeps it simple. An Australian rancher, Kris Hendrix (Radha Mitchell), who is ex-military, calls for help from her former team of snipers when an old enemy, the Dragon (Tim Roth), finds her and is on his way to her place. Desperate to protect Anja (Annabel Wolfe), her daughter, she knows that the odds are still against her and hopes that rumors of the Dragon being dead are true, but when bodies start falling, she knows that she was right all along. The Dragon is alive, and he can kill them all. Will anyone figure out how to survive? For most of the movie, I did not glance at my phone. It is a tense standoff to figure out how everything is going to turn out even if the setup is predictable, elemental and primal without being prurient or too graphic.
While not as much of a brand name as Linda Hamilton, Sigourney Weaver or Jamie Lee Curtis, Radha Mitchell is one of the classic great kick ass women in such films as “Pitch Black” (2000) or “Silent Hill” (2006) so if you hear that she is going to be in a genre movie, that movie becomes a must see. Mitchell has not lost a step and is utterly convincing as Kris, a person who jogs on her property, constantly keeps an eye out for any suspicious activity and is a pain in her daughter’s ass when Anja is not living up to her maximum potential as an archer. There is not an ounce of friendliness or hospitality when a man, Peter Phillips (Ryan Kwanten, unrecognizable clean shaven), drives up with an offer to buy her land, and Kris greets him brandishing a shot gun. From that point on, she is under siege and on high alert, which is saying something for a woman who already appeared to be at maximum levels of guardedness.
Anja is clueless, psyched for her sixteenth birthday and celebrating with her boyfriend, Michael (Lee Tiger Halley). Michael is the normie with the hot girlfriend in a leather jacket, motor bike and bad attitude. It is a nice gender norm swap in demeanor that is subtle enough to ignore. If “Seven Snipers” was an American movie, Sydney Sweeny would play her. Wolfe is just above functional and reflects flashes of brilliance, but it is too early in her career to tell how good she is. After watching this film, the verdict is promising. Wolfe’s take on the character is a decent, naturalistic range: sullen and defiant with Kris or whenever ordered, shaken and frightened when bodies start to drop, annoying and resentful when she blames her mother for their predicament, and childlike at the prospect of losing people that she loves. The most telling sign of her excellent performance is how fucking annoying Anja is because there is not a single instruction that she will not ignore until the denouement.
When the team of snipers arrive, they seem professional, and half the fun of “Seven Snipers” is to watch them gradually unravel as they realize that their mission is going to be more challenging than expected. White Dog (Damien Ryan) is Kris’ former colleague and father to fellow team member, the inexperienced Junior (Charles Cottier), who probably should have banged out of work that day and is not about that life. Nico (Pacharo Mzembe) is furious when he realizes that White Dog buried the lead, and the job is related to the Dragon. Milk (Ioan Gruffudd) initially presents as taciturn and the usual jarhead type, but Gruffudd is a real goddamn actor, and his character becomes the emotional lynchpin of the story in counterintuitive ways that writer Andrew O’Keefe could have sprinkled a skosh more foundation throughout the story instead of collecting it and distributing it more towards the second half. He gives vibes of The Punisher if he was sane and did not get snagged into shady operations. Kaldayev (Bianca Wallace) is another taciturn member of the team, and if you end the movie wondering if the character was even necessary, fun fact, Wallace is Grufudd’s second wife and mother of his youngest child. As the audience gets to know Kris, it becomes obvious that Kris is on another level from the rest of them, the best of the best, and they are all shook when the Dragon appears.
Roth is renowned for playing indomitable villains, and while it has been nice to see him play against type lately, it is also great to see him get back in his comfort zone. If you are expecting that “Seven Snipers” will give a lot of background on his character, don’t. Roth and director Sandra Sciberras collaborate to craft an amoral, emotionless, relentless, perspicacious, cold and focused killer. Sciberras often associates him with insects almost as if he is the walking spectre of death and uses the same deliberate techniques that filmmakers have used to depict Michael Myers from “Halloween” (1978), especially the ability to walk slowly but still be faster than everyone else or suddenly disappear when eyes are not on him. He is a better shot than anyone, including Kris, which makes the stakes high. The mystery is why is he trying to find Kris, and what he wants. The history between the characters is briefly revealed in flashbacks which cinematographer Andrew Conder filters with a blue tone. When the history is revealed, he definitely governs himself and others according to a set of rules that he adheres to, but how he came up with them then imposed them on others is never revealed. Where was he warlord? It makes him more deranged upon further reflection. It feels as if Roth can do this work in his sleep.
Is “Seven Snipers” for everyone? No. If you tend to complain about the quality of the special effects, skip it because there are not many, but when there are, they are obviously fake. As it approaches the denouement, it starts to drag a bit as the herd begins to thin but is never monotonous. Without subtitles, the average American will probably miss some key parts in the sparse dialogue. For instance, the location where Voodoo Child met the Dragon was mentioned, but between the lack of familiarity with geography and the line delivery, the information may as well be encrypted. It was possibly the Star Mountains that span Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Are these details important? No, but even if they were, it does not matter because this movie is the kind that would improve if it had more money but is probably riveting because these creatives knew how to make a meal out of a morsel. The drawbacks are minimal.
“Seven Snipers” is a solid action thriller. It does have a deeper meaning, but to discuss it would mean spoiling the movie, but it is a deeper film that it may superficially seem. It ponders the definition of a parent, creates another example of positive masculinity, handles trauma without exploitation, subverts gender norms and offers a nice lesson about strength in unity and accepting lessons that you once resisted. Milla Jovovich needs to find Mitchell’s agent so she can start getting work in movies like this.
